The EPP dismisses such claims. It says it is simply demanding more transparency in how nonprofits use EU taxpayer money, having accused the European Commission of paying NGOs to lobby other EU institutions on its behalf to promote environmental laws.
But others disagree, including the two other biggest centrist groups in the European Parliament — the liberal Renew Europe group and the center-left Socialists and Democrats — who believe the campaign is an attempt to restrict NGOs’ influence in EU policymaking, a cause of the far right.
It’s driving a wedge between the EPP and its long-standing coalition partners — a shaky partnership that has nevertheless endured till now, keeping EU politics on the center ground.
“[T]he EPP is embracing an agenda of the extreme right,” Valérie Hayer, who leads Renew, said of the group’s campaign against NGOs, which she described as “deeply worrying” and “obviously meant to shrink political and democratic space for NGO work.”
Iratxe García, group chair of the S&D, said that “the right-wing forces which are currently targeting the NGOs have a clear and broader political intention that goes far beyond” and aims to “undermine the Green Deal, transparency, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and fundamental freedoms, all while delegitimizing civil society’s role in democracy.”
The EPP’s probe comes amid a never-slowing surge of autocratic forces making headway in EU countries including Hungary and Slovakia, but also the Netherlands, Germany and France.